A few weeks ago, I told you that I wanted to create three new positions of responsibility within our school. Indeed, after taking some time to really reflect, it was clear to me that we could improve what we offer. We were missing some links in certain areas.
So, on January 15th, I announced my intentions to the staff and published the job descriptions internally. I met twice with several candidates, including a formal interview after the February break. Although I never doubted it, I was still struck by the quality of our conversations, the vision and the dedication of each of the candidates during the recruitment process. It takes a certain amount of courage to volunteer for something like this, to put oneself forward. And I would like to congratulate all those who met with me and shared their goals, their desires and their strong passion for their job.
Then I had to take on the difficult task of choosing the “winners” from amongst these teachers who were all qualified, experienced, and without a doubt, attached to The École. That being said, I am convinced that it is really the whole school that will emerge the winner thanks to these promotions.
A New Maternelle Coordinator
So today, I am very happy to announce to all of our families—having already made the announcement to our staff—that Ben Hayes will be taking on the position of Maternelle Coordinator. Ben is a loyal employee of The École, having joined the school in its earliest days in 2009. He has since become one of its most magnetic personalities. Thanks to his participation in the Back Onsite Committee and the extra workload that he accepted to take on this year in order to grease the sometimes rather squeaky wheels of a school during a pandemic, Ben has been one of the keys to our success. On a personal note, I would also like to thank him for his generosity, his candor and his positive approach to any issues that have come up. Ben will continue to teach full-time next year.
A New Assistant Head
Next, I chose to entrust the position of Assistant Head to Benoit Brisset. This will be a full-time position for him, meaning that he won’t be in the classroom anymore next year. Deciding whether or not to take an excellent teacher like Benoit out of the classroom is always a dilemma. However, I am certain that his skills as a teacher combined with his theoretical training knowledge will benefit the entire school, rather than just one class. Benoit has been very involved in the life of the school—he is a member of many committees. Now he is ready to give a new impetus to his career. What’s more, our ideas about education are perfectly in sync. I am already very excited about the work that we are going to do together.
Lastly, I would like to take a bit more time to think about our next US Curriculum Coordinator. The interviews for this position were also great. However, I realized that I needed to better define the position. I needed to make the goals clearer, so that the candidates could take more ownership of the role. So, I will ask you to be patient a bit longer concerning this position: the search continues!
Congratulations once again to Ben and Benoit, whose profiles you can find here in case you don’t know them.